Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Tuesday

Tonight I met with the Bishop to get an idea of what kind of gear is available for us to use at Girls Camp. He has all kinds of great stuff we can use. Tents, stoves, water jugs, lanters, fire pit, etc.

Camp seems to be swooping in on me, and I have so much to think about -


- how many girls in a tent? 4 or 6?
- how to divide the girls? by age or more random?
- how do you figure out just how much food you need to feed 21 people? Is there some kind of worksheet you can use to see how many pounds of hamburger for spagetti? or how many eggs and slices of bread for french toast?
- what is the best way to keep critters out of the food for 4 days on the beach?
- how do I condense 28 pages of Hawaiian songs and info into a little booklet for each girl?
- I may not be able to dance a hula, but I can hula-hoop!


The most eye opening part of the meeting was when the Bishop asked: What are you going to do about the rice? and I said: Huh? What rice? We have pasta for spagetti, and chips for nachos, do we need rice?

And it turns out we do need rice. For breakfast AND for dinner. The girls will expect it. It makes me feel a little giggly and lucky to get this peak into a bit of Hawaiian culture. Rice!

*************

Next up - after I got home from that, I sat down with Hannah to watch a movie with Will Farrel - Stranger than Fiction. Fun movie. Have you seen it?

My only real comment about the movie is that I love a movie with a watch as a main character.

I do love my watch. I've written about my watch before. Twice. When my favorite watch died last summer I was a little lost without it. So I bought myself a new one - same model, different color.

It's a sports watch, but it's kind of cute. A feminine blue.

My watch wakes me up in the morning. It times me when I run. It encourages me to see just how quickly I can empty the dishwasher (in under 3 minutes this morning.) My watch remembers the sprinklers, and tells me to move the water before I flood the neighborhood. It reminds me to go pick up the kids from school, and won't let me forget that the girls get out early on Wednesdays. I race my watch when I'm shopping, and it keeps me from getting sucked into a Walmart coma. When Nathan is away it keeps track of his time and mine.

Today I took off my favorite watch and I put on my silver watch. I wanted to look a little glam at my first Army Change of Command (fascinating and motiviating - I should have taken pictures - all those marching feet...) My silver watch makes me feel grown up and dressy. But I missed my trusty blue watch. I forgot to switch back, and I was almost late for my appointment with the Bishop...

ps the more I type watch the more I start to think it looks odd. Is that how you spell it?

15 comments:

Lana said...

good luck figureing out the food, that's the hardest part of my job as party princess. Rice will be fun. I didn't know it was a breakfast food but everything will taste delish camping on the beach!

Suzanne said...

How fun that you get to do traditional rice! And how fun that you get to camp on the beach! Much more exotic than rough camp in the mountains here. (Although, I love girl's camp!)

That is rough figuring out all that food! I do know that you should plan 1 egg for every 3 pieces of French Toast you make. (Not sure on the milk amount though. I just always pour the milk in randomly.)

LOL at the "Wal-Mart Coma"! I do that in Wal-Mart and Target too! Ha! :D

Suzanne said...

P.S. Ooh...I'm really wanting one of your duckie towels! I thought of a couple of things I could trade you for one. I would give you 6 of my crocheted baby burp cloths for one towel or an arrangement of 1 dozen of my ribbon roses in a vase for one towel. What do you think? Fair trade? I know you don't have a baby, but the burp cloths are great gifts. I could do boy or girl ones or half and half. If you wanted the roses, I could do any custom color you wanted with a matching ribbon bow on the vase. I can e-mail you examples of other rose arrangements I've made in the past. My picture just shows the roses, but I can also put small filler flowers in to make the arrangement fuller. E-mail me at suzannesto@gmail.com if you're interested in a trade! :D

wendy said...

suzanne - fun! the burb cloths would be great to add to a baby shower gift basket. or the flowers sound nice, I can't really imagine what they look like, so I'll email you. the 1 egg/3 slices of bread is very helpful!

Suzanne said...

Oh, and I've nominated you for a Rockin' Girl Blogger Award. You can come to my site to see if you want! (O.k. enough posts from me in one day! LOL!)

Tori :) said...

Welcome to my life. Seiuli is 1/2 Samoan and when we got married I totally didn't understand the whole rice thing. He wants it with EV.ERY.THING. I draw the line at making it with spaghetti. Now my kids prefer rice over mashed potatoes which happen to be my fave form of starch.
Watch is a weird word.

wendy said...

Tori- how funny about the spagetti, because after the whole rice? what rice? thing, I said "even with spagetti" and the bish said, "well, you don't have to..." but I could tell he really meant "doesn't everyone have a side of rice with spagetti?"

wendy said...

Suzanne!

Woot Woot!

I rock!

Mahalo!

Mary said...

First of all, I loved that movie. I thought it was so well done. Great show to WATCH with Hannah, teehee. I need to get a sporty watch like yours for when I go "jogging."

About the food, I think Suzanne is right about the eggs/bread ratio. As for the other stuff, I have no idea. I'm sure there is a site out there for larger-cooking recipies. Good luck!

Amanda said...

I think the way I found your blog last year was doing a search using camp terms because you told me you had blogged about the toliet paper. LOL Are you the camp director this year?

I found Stranger than fiction a little strange. But I still like it. Just wasn't what I expected.

We love rice for breakfast at our house. We serve it warm with milk and sugar. Doesn't everybody eat rice for breakfast? A side of rice with spaghetti, now that is strange!

orchard_girl said...

Rice with each meal, sounds like Rick and his mom. We went camping and she insisted on bringing our rice cooker. The third day camping she asked why we hadn't had rice yet. We'd eaten steak and potatoes one night, hot dogs and buns the second. Couldn't figure out why we needed so much rice. Now she brings rice balls over almost daily to our kids, since I almost never have rice sitting in the cooker. Rick talks about eating hot rice with a raw egg on top, the rice kind of cooks the egg. They stopped doing that after learning about salmonalla (sp?) They also ate rice with green tea on top, he stopped that after learning about the w. of w. Rick thinks rice with milk and cinnamon is horrid. ok enough about rice.

I have no ideas about caculating food per person, I always over plan.
Heather

Elizabeth-W said...

Very fascinating. So tell about the demographics of your ward. What % have lived their whole lives in Haw, and what % are military? And what percent are caucasian, what part are asian, etc.?
And does rice grow there naturally?
I always get a kick out of regional food. Like in Ohio--they serve over spaghetti!! bizarre, right? But I've eaten it over rice most of my life...

wendy said...

Elizabeth - what do they serve over spagetti? I would say that 75% of our ward is local Hawaiians. And many of those lived and grew up in our same little town. 25% military. Fun! And though there are some "real" hawaiians, a lot of our ward is more chinese/hawaiian. I don't think rice is farmed here.

Heather - tell me about rice balls - is it just balled up rice? or something added? I have a feeling rice is like me and french bread. I love good bread and can have it in addition to any meal.

Amanda - I forgot all about the Toilet Paper. That was fun to read. Yep, I'm the ward camp director. I've had a chance to be way more involved this year, and have gotten to know the girls better. I think it will be super fun!

Mary - I haven't jogged in about 3 weeks now! waaa! maybe i need to start keeping a log on my blog again?

TJ said...

regarding how many girls and who to each tent: we assigned it beforehand so that there weren't any issues. we assigned it a lot by age, but we also looked at how well the girls got along. and i would say the max in a tent would be 5 unless you have to put six in.
the stake did our food, so i can't help you any of that other stuff.
you could put food in the coolers and tape it shut just to make sure nothing got into it. or have a huge rubbermaid thing with a really tight lid.
have you already done certification? what crafts (if any) are you doing? and are you doing secret sisters? always loved that at girls camp....

Super Happy Girl said...

I didn't know that about rice in Hawaii. For breakfast/dinner?
We watched Stranger Than Fiction and really liked it. You watch is cute :)